Dr. Iversen Introduces The Updated Version Of E. Sakazakii; Now Call It Cronobacter
Editor's Note: In January, the 1st International Meeting on Cronobacter (Enterobacter sakazakii) was held in Dublin. As we can get to it, we are featuring summaries from some of the main speakers along with links to their power point presentations.
We begin with Ireland's own Dr. Carol Iversen.
Biography: After completing a PhD at Nottingham Trent University, Carol Iversen worked for Nestlé Research Centre, Switzerland, where she led an international collaboration to define the taxonomy of Enterobacter sakazakii and propose a new genus, Cronobacter.
Dr. Iversen then joined the research team at the Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene, University of Zürich, to continue work on isolation methods and virulence characterisation of these organisms before moving to Ireland under an IRCSET postdoctoral fellowship in 2008.
Dr. Iversen is currently engaged in research on foodborne pathogens at the Centre for Food Safety, UCD. She is also a representative for the National Standards Authority of
Ireland on the ISO and CEN committees for Microbiology and Microbial Contamination, and is co-project leader of the ad’hoc group for development of a horizontal EN ISO
standard for the detection of Cronobacter (E. sakazakii).
Summary: What is (and isn’t) Cronobacter?
Enterobacter sakazakii is an opportunistic pathogen that can cause meningitis, necrotising enterocolitis, and bacteraemia infants. It was first designated as a species in 1980 by Farmer et al. and several outbreaks in NICUs have been linked to contaminated powdered infant formula.
The organism is therefore of concern to infant food manufacturers as well as clinical microbiologists and food safety regulators. In 2008 the taxonomy of E. sakazakii was updated using a polyphasic approach based on extensive geno- and phenotypic evaluations. This resulted in the description of five novel species and the proposal that these be incorporated into a new genus, Cronobacter, which is contaxic with E. sakazakii. The isolation of Cronobacter is complicated by the existence of closely related species, Enterobacter pulveris, E. helveticus and E. turicensis. These species share
similar characteristics to Cronobacter and occur in the same ecological niches including infant foods. However, no health risk has been attributed to these organisms.
Her Powerpoint is Here.
Very interesting information :) my laboratory make similar studies and this bacterium is very good for explore :))